Spansion names fourth CFO in less than five months

Spansion, the bankrupt Sunnyvale flash memory maker that gave its executives a retention-based pay raise in February the same day it fired 3,000 workers, named its fourth chief financial officer in less than five months.

Randy Furr was named to replace Nathan Sarkisian, who served as interim CFO since May 20 when he replaced the previous interim chief financial officer, Thora Thoroddsen. Thoroddsen is a senior vice president with the crisis management consulting firm Spansion hired days before it filed for bankruptcy protection Feb. 28. She became Spansion’s interim CFO in April when the company’s previous full-time CFO and a recipient of the retention-based pay raise, Dario Sacomani, quit.

Furr is the former chief operating officer of Sanmina-SCI who left that company unexpectedly in October 2005 “for personal and family reasons.” He resurfaced seven months later as chief financial officer of Adobe Systems, but resigned that post about a month after a special committee of Sanmina-SCI’s board announced that it would have to restate past financial statements as a result of “improper stock option grants.”

Furr agreed to repay $126,480 to cover the increased strike price of mispriced Sanmina options he previously exercised and to forfeit his right to a severance payment from Sanmina-SCI as part of a deal approved May 1 to settle a shareholder lawsuit over backdating allegations.

Furr’s offer letter guarantees him an annual salary of $440,000 and an annual target bonus of between 70-100 percent of that, subject to the approval of the Bankruptcy court, according to a filing today.

He will report to Chief Executive John Kispert, who’s original contract when he was hired in February called for him to receive a $1.75 million bonus should the company be sold. Since then the board has decided to pursue a “standalone” strategy and the bonus will now also be paid when its reorganization plan is approved.